Growing up in what he calls a “Blood neighborhood” in Denver, LeCrae Moore wanted to emulate the gang members that roamed his streets and lived life on the edge of prison.

Now at age 30, the Christian hip-hop artist — set to play World Arena in Colorado Springs tonight — finds himself in the role-model role, influencing not just a growing fan base, but mainstream musicians, too.

Last week, LeCrae, who uses just his first name professionally, left national The Rock & Worship Roadshow tour for a few days to return to his home in Atlanta to helpa friend in the music industry deal with the unexpected death of Whitney Houston last weekend.

“(My friend) writes for Alicia Keys and other big stars, and he is having a hard time dealing with this death,” LeCrae said. “It’s been very painful for him. He was at a Grammy party in the same hotel, and the party just kept going on even though people knew the police were upstairs. They were like, ‘Oh, she may be alive, she may be dead.’ But the party didn’t stop. ‘It’s the Grammys. The Grammys must go on. This is our time.’ … He’s wrestling with the idea that people didn’t think she had significance or value.”

LaCrae, a multiple Dove Award winner and Grammy-nominated artist, moved to Atlanta in the mid-2000s because of the large music scene there, and to “influence the influential.” He soon found himself accepted in the music community, working with Christian and mainstream artists.

“We are all dealing with the same things. I just have a different outlook,” LeCrae said. “Definitely, I have been included and accepted in the community here. You know, there’s only one degree that separates me from guys like (rapper) T.I. But I try not to get caught up in all the celebrity.

“I have been given the ability to interact with a lot of artists, and they have reached out to me.”

Things weren’t always so clear for LeCrae, who attended Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School and George Washington High School in Denver before moving to Texas when he was 15.

“I was always one foot in and not too far away from problems,” he said.

“In Denver, there were the Bloods and Crips, and my family lived in a Blood neighborhood. I was encouraged not to get involved, but I idolized them and wanted to become one of them.

“Then my mom moved to Texas to get out of that environment. It was probably a good thing — no, it was a good thing.”

“In high school (in Texas) we had cliques, not really gangs, but I was with a group of guys that were stirring up trouble.”

It wasn’t until he was enrolled at the University of North Texas on a full scholarship for performing arts that LeCrae began to turn his life in a more productive direction.

“(At first) I went to school to party, to have a good time and to do some soul-searching,” LeCrae said. “And someone suggested I go to this Bible study.

“I was like, ‘Let me try this out.’ And I was shocked to see people who talked like me and looked like me. I thought Christians were this weird subculture. But these guys dressed like me and spoke like me. And I kept going. It humbled me.”

His songs and videos reflect his new track. The “Just Like You” video features a young man struggling, running drugs, running away from drugs and trying to stay on the right side of the law.

“I tell people that they are selling themselves short,” LeCrae said. “It’s like taking a million dollars and putting it up on walls like wallpaper. You just wasted it. It’s like you wasted what you were given. Life is to live and if you don’t live up to that potential you wasted it.

“Most people receive (the message) well. How could they not? They’ve been told all their lives how terrible they are. Nobody is telling them that they have worth.”

Vic Damone, a pop crooner whose creamy baritone and heartthrob good looks propelled his success at the jukebox and on-screen in the post-World War II era, and for five decades more in nightclubs and concert halls, died Feb. 11 at a hospital in Miami Beach. He was 89.